Screen
10 January 2013

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French Culture Minister calls meeting over Maraval-gate storm

Wild Bunch’s Vincent Maraval says thrust of Le Monde editorial distorted by “sensationalist” headline.
Gaumont finds homes for The Brats ahead of Paris RDV premiere

Company will also launch popular comedienne Reem Kherici’s directorial debut picture Paris or Perish (Paris à Tout Prix) [pictured] at the Unifrance meeting.
Royal Affair leads Denmark’s Bodil Award nominations

Period drama up against Excuse Me, Teddy Bear, You and Me Forever, and A Hijacking for Best Film.
Sky and Canal+ take The Bridge to bilingual co-production

Sky has greenlit its co-produced version of Scandinavian drama The Bridge, which it claims will be the first bilingual drama project made by broadcasters in France and the UK.
5 Broken Cameras takes top prize at Cinema Eye awards

Detropia wins two prizes at the New York ceremony; Bully wins audience award.
Academy Award nominees: the verdict

Academy members have come up with a boisterous selection of nominees that tips its hat to the populist vote – the Holy Grail for the Academy these days. But there are some whopping omissions, not the least of which is a complete shut-out for The Dark Knight Rises.
Academy to honour Bill Taylor with Bonner Medal

The visual effects supervisor and director of photography will receive the John A Bonner Medal Of Commendation from the board of governors.
Acquisitions: Lorber tastes Honey, Freestyle sets inAPPropriate

Kino Lorber has acquired US rights to festival favourite More Than Honey ahead of the documentary’s US premiere at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.
Amber Heard, Hailee Steinfeld, Connie Nielsen join McG thriller

EuropaCorp and Relativity Media made the announcement on Monday [7]. The new cast join previously announced Kevin Costner on the untitled project.
Amour, Emmanuelle Riva, Michael Haneke top NSFC poll

The National Society Of Film Critics announced its annual winners on Saturday [50] when Amour was a big winner.
Annapurna Pictures, Color Force unite on Bernadette

The parties have acquired feature film rights to Maria Semple’s acclaimed bestseller Where’d You Go, Bernadette and have set Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber of (500) Days Of Summer fame to adapt the screenplay.
Argo wins best picture at Critics’ Choice Movie Awards

The Broadcast Film Critics Association’s (BFCA) 18th awards in Santa Monica also honoured Daniel-Dawy Lewis for best actor and Jessica Chastain for best actress.
ASC unveils cinematography nominations

Seamus McGarvey is in contention for his work on Anna Karenina, as are Claudio Miranda for Life Of Pi [pictured] and Roger Deakins for Skyfall.
BAFTA brass hail "eclectic" and “international” nominations

BAFTA CEO Amanda Berry calls this year’s nominations a “wide-open race”.
BAFTA nominees both 'humbled' and 'thrilled'

UPDATED: Reactions from today’s nominees for BAFTA awards.
Bafta Rising Star nominees include Andrea Riseborough and Elizabeth Olsen

Four of this year’s five nominees are women after last year’s awards were dominated by men. The winner will be decided by the public.
Baltasar Kormakur to produce Dagur Kari’s Rocketman

This will mark the first collaboration between the two Icelandic film-makers, Kormakur’s Blueeyes Production label announced on Friday [4].
Berlin unveils Generation line-up

The Berlin Film Festival has released it full line-up to focus on children and young people in cinema – Generation – and includes 31 world premieres.
Berlinale unveils new German talent line-up

Former Shooting Star Max Riemelt headlines with Katharina Schüttler and Hanno Kofler in Stephan Lacant’s Free Fall, which will open in the Berlinale’s Perspektive Deutsches Kino sidebar showcasing the work of Germany’s next generation of filmmakers.
BFI appoints Edward Humphrey as director of digital

Former ITV exec will be tasked with leading digitisation of 10,000 BFI titles and developing a BFI VOD platform.
BFI launches Vision Awards to back UK producers with up to £2.5m over next two years

BFI Film Fund head Ben Roberts notes new relaxed eligibility criteria will encourage more breadth of producers to apply.
Blancanieves leads Spanish Goya nominations

Re-telling of the Snow White story receives 18 nominations, with The Impossible, Unit 7, The Artist and the Model also up for multiple awards.
Brent Burge on creating the soundscape for The Hobbit

The sound designer talks to ScreenTech about Peter Jackson’s return to the world of Middle Earth.
Busan reports 177% location boost

The Busan Film Commission (BFC) has announced 24 feature films and 37 other works of visual media shot on location last year in South Korea’s second city for a total of 698 days - up 177% year-on-year. Feature films included CJ Entertainment’s summer sci-fi thriller Deranged and Showbox’s mega box office hit The Thieves [pictured].
Canadian critics honour Stories We Tell

Sarah Polley’s cinematic memoir wins $100,000 Rogers Best Canadian Film Award.
Chris Dodd appoints Diane Strahan MPAA COO

The MPAA chairman made the announcement on Friday [4] and hailed the new executive’s ” break-through strategies for high growth players.”
Cineworld touts 2.4% annual revenue bump

UK exhibitor’s drop in admissions was offset by 5% higher ticket price.
Copyright licensing agency promotes Peter Kuyper Jr to CEO

Kuyper Jr’s promotion at the Motion Picture Licensing Corporation (MPLC) came into effect on Jan 1.
Creative England backs Finlay's new music documentary

Creative England is backing Jeanie Finlay’s next Orion: The Man Who Would Be King.
Creative Skillset launches fund to support UK film industry

A total of £132,000 ($212,000) is now available for organisations to develop skills and training in response to identified needs within the film industry.
Distribution: Magnolia gets Hurt Me, Phase 4 finds Bad Kids

Magnolia Pictures has acquired North American rights to Nothing Can Hurt Me, Drew DeNicola and Oliva Mori’s documentary about the band Big Star.
Entertainment lobby issues statement on Biden meeting

Vice-president Joe Biden met with representatives from the MPAA, NATO, IFTA, the DGA and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association in Washington DC on Thursday [10] to discuss gun violence in the wake of last month’s massacre at a Connecticut primary school.
eOne completes acquisition of Alliance; Loewy and Layton depart

eOne’s Throop and Theroux to lead combined company as Alliance’s Loewy and Layton exit.
Film London launches Audience on Demand training scheme

The three-month programme is aimed at first and second time feature filmmakers from across the UK.
FilmNation reports $469m box office in 2012

CEO Glen Basner hailed “tremendous” figures as he announced on Wednesday [9] the overall grosses for all FilmNation films during the last calendar year.
First photo of Gyllenhaal, Fassbender and Gleeson in Frank

Filming began in New Mexico this week on Frank and the first image shows Michael Fassbender between Maggie Gyllenhaal and Domhnall Gleeson in the iconic mask.
Flight, The Master, Silver Linings among WGA nominees

Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Amour were ineligible under WGA regulations.
Fox International led studio box office in bumper 2012

The second highest calendar year in the company’s history delivered a mighty $2.714bn in aggregated grosses powered by Ice Age: Continental Drift’s $718.1m haul.
Fox International’s Life Of Pi usurps Hobbit, crosses $300m

JAN 7 UPDATE: Fox 2000’s acclaimed Yann Martel adventure brought in a confirmed $59.3m over the weekend to edge out The Hobbit in a race that turned out to be much closer than originally thought, buoyed by Fox’s fourth biggest debut of all time in Russia.
French box office dipped 5.9% in 2012

French films accounted for 40.2% of market against 45.3% for US pictures.
Fun with Foley

Live soundtrack event showcases Strickland’s one-minute 2005 original short Berberian Sound Studio [pictured].
Gabriel Byrne, Rufus Sewell thriller set for February release in UK

Gabriel Byrne, Rufus Sewell and Toby Stephens star in crime thriller from Kidulthood producer George Isaac.
Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna collaborate on shorts

Canana founders Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna are to each direct a short, both of which are connected.
Gangster Squad

Dir: Ruben Fleischer. US. 2013. 113mins
GE and Cinelan announce Focus Forward prize winners

Jurors included Sundance senior programmer Caroline Libresco, actress Daryl Hannah, Barbara Kopple, Jose Padilha and Joe Berlinger.
German box office set to hit €1bn

German cinemas are expected to have shattered the €1bn ($1.31bn) turnover barrier in 2012.
Göteborg unveils 2013 programme; reveals Dragon Award titles

Eight new Nordic features will compete for the $150,000 (SEK 1m) Dragon Award – one of the film world’s largest prizes – at Sweden’s 36th Göteborg International Film Festival.
Haut et Court boards Ellis’ Sundance-bound Metro Manila

EXCLUSIVE: Haut et Court has taken French rights from Independent ahead of the thriller’s Sundance premiere.
Hobbit and Impossible go head-to-head at UK box office

Based on estimates, The Hobbit has narrowly retained its UK box office crown ahead of The Impossible’s impressive $6.5m (£4m) debut, including previews.
Irish actor Jack Reynor joins Transformers 4 cast

Michael Bay announced on his website on Tuesday [8] that he has cast Reynor in the upcoming Transformers 4.
Jinga sells Ghett’a Life to US

MVD picks up Jamaica’s highest grossing box office hit for DVD and VOD.
Joe Biden, Hollywood to hold gun violence talks

The US Vice-President is scheduled to meet representatives from a host of entertainment-related bodies in Washington DC on Thursday [10] in the wake of December’s Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt bulks up 3D Sin City sequel

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For was one of the hot market titles in Cannes last summer, when Aldamisa International introduced sales. North American distributor Dimension Films made the casting announcement on Monday [7].
Josh Brolin signs up to Sin City 2

Aldamisa International introduced Sin City: A Dame To Kill For to buyers in Cannes last summer.
Kathryn Bigelow, Ben Affleck among DGA nominees

The Directors Guild Of America unveiled on Tuesday [8] the five contenders for its 65th feature film award, but there will be no joy for absentees Paul Thomas Anderson, David O Russell, Quentin Tarantino or Robert Zemeckis.
Les Misérables crosses $100m in US in record 13 days

Working Title’s awards contender on Sunday [6] became the fastest musical to pass the milestone in North America after grossing $16.1m through Universal to reach $103.6m.
LevelK takes rights to Best Man Down

The international rights to Ted Koland’s debut feature have been picked up by Danish sales company LevelK.
Lincoln leads BAFTA nominations, followed by Les Mis and Life of Pi

Skyfall surprises with eight nominations; other top nominees include Argo, Anna Karenina, Django Unchained and Zero Dark Thirty.
Lincoln leads Oscar nominations

Lincoln leads the pack of Oscar nominees announced today, with 12 nods. Life of Pi follows closely with 11, then Les Misérables and Silver Linings Playbook with eight each, and Argo with seven.
Lionsgate International reports $1.3bn grosses in 2012

Propelled by the Twilight finale and buoyed by the merger with Summit, Lionsgate’s international division scored a mighty $1.251bn at the box office.
Lives of Others producers reunite with Schweighöfer for third directorial outing

Wiedemann & Berg Film, producers of Oscar-winning The Lives Of Others, are to be reunited with actor-producer-director Matthias Schweighöfer for his third directorial outing Vaterfreuden later this year.
Malkovich to play Casanova in The Giacomo Variations

John Malkovich is set to be reunited with Austrian film and opera director Michael Sturminger for a big screen adaptation of The Giacomo Variations.
m-appeal takes on sales for three Rotterdam titles

Berlin-based world sales company m-appeal has taken on international distribution for Tiger Competition entry My Dog Killer and Bright Future titles Kayan and What They Don’t Talk About When They Talk About Love.
Mary Bacarella succeeds Deborah Person as SIFF managing director

The long-time Space Needle executive starts in her new role on Feb 1 and will lead the organisation in tandem with artistic director Carl Spence.
Metrodome hires Woodyatt, promotes Johnson

Andrew Woodyatt joins from Revolver. Rebecca Johnson becomes head of film marketing.
Metrodome nabs Baumbach’s Frances Ha

EXCLUSIVE: UK distributor picks up rights to Telluride and Toronto comedy from Celluloid Dreams.
Miramax promotes Joe Patrick, Beth Minehart

Patrick is named evp of worldwide television while Minehart becomes evp of global digital, reporting to Miramax interim CEO Steve Schoch. Separately, Robert Green has joined the ranks at Condé Nast Entertainment.
Noble to begin shooting on Jan 10

Stephen Bradley’s true-life story will shoot for four weeks in Vietnam, before moving to Liverpool until March 8th.
Norway predicts box office boost after weak 2012

The Norwegian Film Institute predicts a 33% boost to admissions over the next 12 months.
Norwegian films down 24% at domestic box office

Top five Norwegian and international films of 2012 revealed.
Oscar ceremony to pay tribute to James Bond

Organisers at the upcoming 85th Academy Awards on Feb 24 will include a tribute to the 50-year-old franchise.
Pi set to sweep past $350m mark for Fox

Ang Lee’s adventure ruled the international roost last weekend and is expected to do so again this weekend, boosted by 11 Academy Award nominations.
QED International snaps up Toy’s House on eve of EFM

New worldwide president of marketing and acquisitions John Hegeman made the announcement on Friday [25]. CBS Films picked up US rights earlier in the week and is targetting a 2013 release.
Robin Williams to star in Dito Montiel’s Boulevard

Camellia Entertainment is in pre-production on the upcoming drama about marriage and lies.
Rotterdam unveil inaugural Big Screen Award Competition lineup

Competition, which aims to support the distribution of films in Dutch cinemas, will hold world premieres of new films by Michael Noer [pictured] and David Verbeek.
Rotterdam’s Bright Future line up announced

First or second-time filmmakers are behind 74 feature length titles in the Bright Future section of the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
Rotterdam's Signals programme includes Snow, Conrad, Palfi

Returning festival section Regained to highlight Michael Snow, Tony Conrad and Gyorgy Palfi.
Rotterdam's Tiger Competition offers new works from Esmer, Fornay

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (Jan 23-Feb 3) has unveiled the full list of 16 films, including 8 world premieres, competing for the Hivos Tiger Awards Competition.
Russian cinema reports tough 2012

Domestic films in Russia suffered a 2.1% dip at the box office in 2012.
Santa Barbara Festival unveils line-up, awards honourees

Pablo Larraín’s Chilean Oscar contender No gets pride of place in the 2013 Santa Barbara International Film Festival as the International Gala.
Sarah Polley doc wins TFCA Rogers Award

The Toronto Film Critics Association announced at its awards night on Tuesday [8] that Polley’s Stories We Tell had received the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award.
SFFS, Kenneth Rainin Foundation extend partnership

The San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) announced on Thursday [10] that it would receive a “significant increase” in funding to its Filmmaker360 programmes through a renewal of its relationship with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation.
Skyfall propels Sony to top of UK market

eOne has also become the UK’s number one independent distributor, ahead of Paramount – the first time that an indie has out-grossed a studio since 2007.
Solar Entertainment Group launches investment bank

SEG has partnered with Hoffman Lloyd to create the specialised media and entertainment entity Solar Entertainment HLB.
SPC takes North American rights to Blue Jasmine

The acquisition from Gravier Productions marks the distributor’s sixth collaboration with Woody Allen.
Steven Spielberg puts Robopocalypse on backburner

It emerged on Wednesday [9] that The DGA nominee – eying a seventh best director Oscar nomination on Thursday – has postponed start of production on the sci-fi adaptation.
Team launch new UK management and production company

Two of Independent Talent Group’s top agents have left the company to set up a new management and production company with the executives behind UK indie Between the Eyes.
Teranex 2D processor aids archiving at Amsterdam’s SuperSens

SuperSens has been providing video, film and audio digitisation services for more than 12 years.
Texas Chainsaw 3D

Dir: John Luessenhop. US. 2013. 91mins
The Best Offer

Dir/scr: Giuseppe Tornatore. Italy. 2012. 124mins
The Exchange closes Thin Ice deal with Universal

Brian O’Shea announced on Wednesday [9] that the company had finalised a multi-territory distribution deal with Universal Pictures International Entertainment (UPIE).
The Fruit Hunters

Dir: Yung Chang. Canada. 2012. 95mins
The Hobbit crosses $500m at international box office

JAN 4 UPDATE: Warner Bros Pictures International’s fantasy epic stood at $513.4m through Jan 3 and remains the one to beat heading into its fourth weekend. Meanwhile Breaking Dawn - Pt 2 has reached $800m worldwide.
The Impossible boosts Spanish cinema to record high

The Impossible and Tad the Explorer helped push Spanish cinema to its best ever domestic figures in 2012.
Tied

Dir/scr: Hélène Fillieres. France-Belgium-Luxembourg. 2012. 80mins
Tom Hassell named Cinedigm vp of theatrical distribution

Hassell will be responsible for all aspects of theatrical distribution for Cinema Corp, whose recent slate includes Arthur Newman, Violet And Daisy and The Invisible War.
Traction reps North American rights to Sundance selection Lasting

Los Angeles-based Traction Media has come on board as North American sales representative of Jacek Borcuch’s Lasting.
Tribeca secures Jinga’s Hansel and Gretel comedy

Tribeca Film has acquired North American rights to Jinga Films’ Black Forest: Hansel and Gretel & the 420 Witch.
Universal’s showtimes app debuts with Les Misérables

Application links to the booking pages of major exhibitors.
Valiant Entertainment shuffles Shamdasani, Kothari

Co-founder and chief creative officer Dinesh Shamdasani is named chief executive while founding CEO Jason Kothari has been appointed vice-chairman of the board.
Verbeek and Loznitsa up for Rotterdam shorts prize

The Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films, part of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), will feature 23 titles – including the world premiere of new works from David Verbeek and Sergei Loznitsa.
Visit Films heads to Park City with four new titles

EXCLUSIVE: Ryan Kampe’s New York-based sales agency has acquired rights to The Future, It Felt Like Love, Halley and A Teacher.
Way To Blue becomes fully integrated global communications agency

EXCLUSIVE: Digital native firm adds dedicated social and offline publicity teams; Daniel Heale and Laura Pettitt join as associate director of social and UK entertainment director, respectively.
What Richard Did dominates IFTA nominations

Lenny Abrahamson’s picture leads the way with 10 nominations and joins four others in Best Picture category all funded by the Irish Film Board (IFB). Grabbers and Shadow Dancer notched four nominations with Death Of A Superhero, Jump and Good Vibrations scoring three each.
Yash Raj Films to co-produce three with Dibakar Banerjee Productions

India’s Yash Raj Films (YRF) has announced a three picture co-production deal with Dibakar Banerjee Productions. The studio describes the deal as part of what “promises to be a long term strategy”.
Zero Dark Thirty sweeps EDA Awards

Zero Dark Thirty has scooped eight prizes at the EDA Awards, hosted by the Alliance of Women Film Journalists (AWFJ).

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10 January 2013